"HelloFresh Workers Unionize to Improve Brutal Working Conditions", 16 September 2021

Last year, HelloFresh...doubled its U.S. revenue to $2.4 billion. But on HelloFresh's assembly lines, workers were unable to afford rent, suffered serious injuries, and were subjected to timers when they used the bathroom...

Now 1,300 HelloFresh workers...are unionizing two HelloFresh factory kitchens in Colorado and California... 

[Mary] Williams...says that in recent months, her assembly line, which is supposed to have seven workers, has been expected to meet the same quotas with only four workers, due to staffing difficulties. She feels discouraged from taking water breaks because the burden would fall on her co-workers to pick up the slack. When she uses the bathroom...her supervisor sets a 10-minute timer...

Multiple workers at both the Richmond and Aurora facilities have shared...that they are homeless and cannot afford rent with HelloFresh wages...

Lily Vasquez...said...[s]he suffers chronic pain in her neck, back, and shoulders from repeating the same motions thousands of times...

HelloFresh workers in Aurora and Richmond say anti-union consultants have visited and held mandatory anti-union meetings in recent days...

On June 16, an unmoored several-hundred-pound pallet full of plastic bins fell...onto four workers in Aurora, trapping them and sending two seriously injured workers in ambulances to the hospital for treatment... 

Workers say this was the fourth time a pallet had fallen in four months because they weren't secured with brackets or rope...

A spokesperson from HelloFresh said..."We took the incident very seriously, but the item that was involved was smaller,"..."Immediately following the incident, we partnered with OSHA and subsequently added enhanced safety measures."..

Last year, at least 171 workers tested positive for COVID-19 at the HelloFresh facility in Richmond...When Vasquez and her son tested positive for COVID, she says she called management repeatedly to inform them but never got a response...